Day of the Dead - Grateful, That Is

For a person who has always had disdain for the Grateful Dead...

There were two movies that featured music from the Dead today. Wait - can I interrupt? I promised to tell everyone how dinner went at Zoom last night. As always, we had a super nice time. The only celeb last night was a grade C guy who you could tell had been a total nerd in high school, yet because he has a small role on a hit TV show, he can date a plastic blond. Oh, how mean. Anyway back to today's movies. First movie was THE MUSIC NEVER STOPPED, about a guy who'd had a brain tumour and the lovely Julia Ormond plays a music therapist who brought him closer to an even keel after surgery. Based on an Oliver Sachs book with one of the most amazing (expensive) sound tracks including The Beatles, The Stones, Dylan, Clapton and a big concert with a Grateful Dead apparition. We're wondering how they are going to pay for all that music. The Festival folks are still working out some of the line organization kinks, so we didn't get into the second film, but the third was waaaaaay cool: MAGIC TRIP, a documentary about Ken Kesey and his merry band of pranksters. The filmmakers (TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE'S Alex Gibney) took footage from the original Electric Koolaid Acid Test road movie made 40+ years ago, and did a fantastic job of showing the bisection of the Beat and Hippie generation, with LSD as the common denominator. I'm not doing this justice - I had a smile on my face the whole time. Next, SUBMARINE, from the UK about a kid a little too inside his head going through teen issues, and my last film was my favorite MEEK'S CUTOFF. I missed it at Toronto and since I'm a sucker for a prairie story - had to see it. Its an incredible realistic story about three families crossing the plains under difficult circumstances. Michelle Williams is the main character - tough as nails pioneer. Hope it gets picked up.

Let's talk celebs. We were invited to the Fox Searchlight party tonight and they do put on a very nice event. They also enabled a much higher celeb quotient: I rubbed somethings with Paul Giamatti, Amy Ryan, Anne Heche, Rashida Jones, Elizabeth Banks, Bobby Canavalle and a few others I'd rather not say in order to not provide them with unwarranted publicity. Good day all around. Caramel apples = 0 Celebs = a crapload.